Public hearing on project is March 12

The Village of Hinsdale will hold a public hearing on phase one of its plans to replace the Oak Street bridge, a one-lane steel-and-timber bridge that has been in place for 128 years.

The village, representatives of the Illinois Department of Transportation and the engineering firm, ClarkDietz, will take comments from the public at 7 p.m. March 12 at the village hall, 19 E. Chicago St.

Construction on the new bridge that will cross over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks is slated to begin in 2015. Work is not expected to be done until 2016.

Phase One of the work has involved putting together preliminary engineering plans and environmental assessments. Work done so far on the project will be reviewed at the meeting, and people will be able to make comments on the plans, said Village Engineer Dan Deeter. There also will be a two-week window following the meeting during which residents can submit comments in writing.

"We want to make sure we have full and clear resident participation," he said.

The proposed work calls for a two-lane bridge that will be three-feet higher than the existing bridge, 20-feet-wider and 50-feet-longer. It also will require some changes to Oak Street and other adjacent street.

The bridge, located just south of Adventist Hinsdale Hospital, originally was constructed for pedestrians in 1885. Its single vehicle lane currently can only handle one-way traffic. Vehicles on opposite ends of the bridge have to wait for a green light to signal their turn to cross over the train tracks.

The village has estimated that 6,000 vehicles cross the bridge on average each day. The village does not have statistics on daily pedestrian traffic, Deeter said.

The bridge replacement is estimated to cost between $13 million and $17 million.

The next phase, which Deeter said he expects to begin in May, will be the construction and engineering phase.

"That's when we really get into the weeds and develop construction documents," he said.

The second phase will last about a year. Deeter said contact has already been made with some engineering firms that may handle the second phase.